Philippine Startup Makes Unusual Job Offer: Overseas Wages At Home

About 8 million Filipinos are working abroad in places from Canada to Dubai, tolerating odd jobs far from their families to earn more money than they could get at home. There’s cultural isolation and racism. Some people are overworked on fishing vessels to the point of endangering their health. Others suddenly find their contracts suddenly cut and get sent back to the Philippines.

Now a startup that bills itself as the Uber for condominium cleaners in Metro Manila is paying workers about what they would earn overseas. It hires mainly people who have returned, jobless, from the travails of pursuing a decent wage in other countries.

Sister of Filipina Mary Jane Veloso, who is on death row in Indonesia, joins Philippine leftists in front of the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila on January 13, 2016, demanding for more legal assistance for overseas Filipino workers (OFW) in jail and on death row. (JAY DIRECTO/AFP/Getty Images)

Brick Tech Cleaning Service launched in January with a website that matches cleaners with clients. It has hired 30 people so far and another 300 applications are pending. The firm more commonly known as CleanHome.ph hires them to clean condominiums around Manila and about 830 clients have ordered services to date. The company founders, CEO James Yabut and CTO Mike Yu, got going because they found existing cleaners unprofessional, sometimes overcharging or requiring that clients provide the supplies. Yabut’s family runs a security company, enabling him to do background checks on workers. Yu had worked before in marketing.

CleanHome.ph targets former overseas workers for their experience and need of work, Yabut says. They bring their own supplies and call themselves “partners” in CleanHome to raise respect among clients. Customers can also get a space cleaned within three hours of placing an order, less than the usual 48 hours. The worker gets 80% of a job fee and CleanHome 20%. “We always say we are a solution and an opportunity generator for overseas Filipino workers,” he says.

CleanHome contractors can make 20,000 to 35,000 Philippine pesos ($426-$746) per month, Yabut says. Normally they would earn 8,000 to 11,000 per month in the tough local economy where about a quarter of people live in poverty.

Melissa Bolante is a paragon employee. The 34-year-old returned to the Philippines last year after working half a decade as a domestic helper in Malaysia. She wanted to be closer to family. CleanHome.ph gives her about two jobs a day totaling six hours. She calls the job “dignified” because of the pay and working conditions.

CleanHome.ph, as a “lean team” reinvests profits back into the company, Yabut says. It expects to expand throughout the country of 102 million people by year’s end as Filipinos take a shine to the sharing economy. “People are more and more aware of the shared economy in Southeast Asia, with the success of startups like Go-Jek and Grab,” the CEO says, referring to a pair of popular ride booking services in the region. “With more startups like these, more will continue to develop.”

As a news reporter I have covered some of everything since 1988, from my alma mater U.C. Berkeley to the Great Hall of the People in Beijing where I followed Communist officials for the Japanese news agency Kyodo. Stationed in Taipei since 2006, I track Taiwanese companies a...